Captured Hearts: The Substitute Bride's Gambit - Chapter 5 You Are Born to Be a Maid

Aaron Smith encounters a weeping lady by the bridge and tries to help her, thinking she might be attempting suicide. Instead, she turns out to be a ghost that kills him with a heart attack. Now his soul has been transferred into a rat within a dungeon. Can this man survive the ordeal, or will he become mere nourishment for novice adventurers?[Note: I’m stepping away for a little while due to personal reasons. Chapters will still come, just not every day. Thank you all for supporting the story and for waiting. It means more than you know.]

“Failed writer. Failed hunter. Failed at life.”Aiden Jus had heard it all before. At twenty-eight, he was a walking reminder of what happened when you failed your mana awakening and spent thirteen years chasing a dream that would never come true. No powers. No future. Just a cramped flat in the UK and a lifetime of rejection letters from publishers who never bothered to read past the first page.But the day Aiden decided to give up on writing—the day he was ready to finally accept a soul-crushing desk job at an editing firm—everything changed.*[You have been chosen by Nabu, God of Literacy and Scribes]**[Skill Acquired: Narrative Embodiment (Divine-Rank)]*The ancient Mesopotamian deity offered Aiden something unprecedented: the power to physically enter any story he writes and gain real abilities from the fictional worlds he creates.*[You have mastered Celestial Blade Art - Skill permanently acquired]**[You have learned Tier-9 Spell: Void Severance - Spell permanently acquired]*Every sword technique mastered, every spell learned, every power gained inside his stories becomes permanently his in the real world. But so does every death trap, overpowered villain, and narrative cruelty he carelessly wrote in moments of frustration.Suddenly, Aiden isn't just a failed writer anymore. While other awakened humans rely on mana cores and dungeon raids, Aiden's strength comes from the worlds born from his imagination—a power that operates outside the traditional hunter system entirely.As rival gods compete for powerful human contractors and ancient ruins promise unimaginable treasures, Aiden must survive the deadly fictional universes he created while building his reputation in a society that once dismissed him as worthless.**From the typewriter to the battlefield, Aiden Jus will prove that the pen truly is mightier than the sword—as long as you're willing to live through every word you write.**

In her previous life, the woman that her husband cheated on dug out her beautiful eyes, told her that her child was not her husband’s and then tortured her to death. Her six year old son, Tiantian, was harmed by the adulterer while her parents were brutally murdered…

Eons have passed since the prophesied godslayer met his demise. Yet, in a world reborn, whispers stir of his return, of a new man born from the remnants of an ancient prophecy.Kallen, destined to master the delicate balance between chaos and order, light and darkness, emerges to defy the very fabric of fate.Existence is a tapestry, one whole, connected, and indivisible. It is woven by the fabric of fate, spun with the strings of karma, and stitched with the threads of causality.Yet, within this unity lies individuality, and this individuality is the essence of existence. The manifestation of essence is Will.But what is a sparked Will against one akin to a raging inferno? What is a child before a mammoth? The conviction of a mortal before the boundless Will of cosmic beings?The answer is defiance!.A defiant Will, is what Kallen needs to liberate himself from the suppression every mortal endures from apex lifeforms. To live his life free, unhinged and on his own terms.But it takes a bit of crazy to be brave, and Insanity to be defiant.This is the story of a mortal breaking limits to achieve Apexification, to walk with his head held high and free in every corner of the universe.It is the irony of a slave who holds the reins, even as their chains bite deep. It is the cry of a heart bound in servitude, yet refusing to surrender its essence.